Ex-Bellevue teacher delivers lost letters to 18 students

Three weeks ago, former teacher Kathy Burns Rosen launched her hunt for 25 of her Sunset Elementary School fifth and sixth graders here on the Big Blog.

She had found letters they wrote to their future selves in 1970s about what they thought the new decade would bring. Rosen, 62, was going to send them back – but forgot.

Still, all these years later, she wanted to make good on her promise.

So after several weeks of research, more news coverage and a lot of help, Rosen is happy to report that of those 25 kids who are turning 50 years old this year, she’s found 18 – and has learned some interesting things about what they thought the future would look like.

“It’s opened up so many wonderful doors and it’s brought so many remarkable people back into my life,” said Rosen, who lives in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. “We will definitely be getting together. I don’t know when, but we will.”

All but two of the students she’s found remain in Washington state. Among them are a retired nurse, a business owner, a carpet layer, a jewelry designer and a school secretary. One of the 25, she learned, died in a car accident in 1985.

Here’s what some of them thought would happen in the 1970s:

We’ll have the SST transport (supersonic transport)

The Vietnam war will end and there will be peace.

Cars will not run on gasoline – they’ll run on electricity.

There will be so much pollution on earth that we’ll have to live in a bubble or build houses on the moon.

Already she and her husband are developing a Web site to be called SunsetLetters.com where they’ll post scanned copies of the letters and give the students the space and tools to recollect.

Without the Web, Rosen said, she wouldn’t have been able to find her students. And the search is still on. This weekend, Rosen will be a guest on Weekend America on NPR – her first national media appearance. KUOW and the Bellevue Reporter are also scheduled to run stories on her quest.

“I never in my wildest dreams anticipated that I would be back in touch with these kids, and I could not have imagined how meaningful it is to me,” Rosen said. “I just think it must be very stranger to have this person back in their lives. When I talk to them and I’ll say, ‘Do you remember who your fifth grade teacher was?’ They’ll say, ‘Of course. Ms. Burns.’ I’ll say, ‘You’re talking to her.’”